In recent years, with the great advancement of power electronics, the electronic ballasts have replaced the conventional electromagnetic ballasts for driving fluorescent lamps. The electronic ballast is advantageous in terms of the thin and small size, enhanced illuminating efficiency, and improved luminance.
The electronic ballasts have various topologies in practice. The self-oscillating electronic ballast is widely employed as the self-oscillating electronic ballast has a short startup time, high illuminating efficiency, low cost, and simple structure. However, the self-oscillating electronic ballast is difficult to perform dimming control and preheat the filaments of the lamp due to its inherent design limitation. Thus, the lifetime of the lamp driven by the self-oscillating electronic ballast is negatively affected.
It is incline to develop an electronic ballast to address the aforementioned problems encountered by the prior art.